Monday, October 4, 2010

After plenty of games, finally Sports begin....


Vibrant, breathtaking, Stunning, electrifying, " Olympian in scope and ambition", vividly memorable, an Indian wedding... ok now I am tired, but trust you me, the list is endless. Oh in case you are wondering what I am talking about... its the opening ceremony of Delhi-2010.



When the world's biggest blimp, costing Rs 40 Crs, or $8million, rose to touch the roof of of Jawahar Lal Nehru stadium, every Indian's head also rose with satisfaction, pride, and above all, patriotism. Somewhere close to 65000 strong spectators, 6000 athletes, 3000 performers, and thousands of other staff somehow pulled every string right which was a surprise TBH considering the run up to the event.


Yes, the real test will start from Monday, but if 90 minutes of opening ceremony is anything to go by,, man you are in for a treat. After the formalities of speeches, marching of athletes, announcement of games to begin by Prince Charles (since Queen of England somehow missed the first CWG in last 44 years) and Indian President, Pratibha Patil, and Indian army putting up the CWG flag, the show started. First was showcase of of value of teacher in a man's life, and the tree of knowledge rose from the center stage. And then the showcase of 5000 year history of India started. Every color you can ever imagine was there, every emotion you can ever come up was on the faces of every Indian inside the stadium, in front of the TV screen. As the show was wrapped up by Rahman's performance, we all took a breath of releif, there was no BW, there was no goof up, it was just an India vying to burst out on the worl stage. We were like the new kid of the class, the one which throws the biggest party he/she can, just so people accept him as one of their own. And yes, if papers are anything to go by, they already have started whispering that this kid might actually be better than them.



Anyhow, the show is over, sports will start now. We will put an effort to keep everyone updated of the events and scores. Hopefully, on 16th of October we all will be as proud as we are today.


Some highlights:
- 7 year old Keshav on tabla with thousands of drummers
- OFC $8 mil blimp
- Australia entering first in the stadium, being host nation of last olympics, their colorful attire was awesome.
- England athletes wearing KURTAS, yes, the Indian wear.
- Some nations I never know actually existed, some with a population of few thousands.
- Indian athletes, in traditional red and golden clothes
- As Indian athletes entered, that you must watch if you can, thousands of drums started rolling, and every athlete from other nations stood up to give standing ovation to Indian contingent, FIRST TIME EVER in CWGs
- Ok now this was really funny, when Kalmadi stood up, he was actually greeted by BOOS, yep, awesome Delhi :D
- Mere mention of the names of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Azad, former president of India, OMG the way crowd reacted with cheers and applause.
- When Kalmadi thanked former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Delhi gave its loudest cheer for the big man's big plans unfolding right in front of their eyes.
- Indian railways' tribute to India, sorry, Incredible India. With Chaiyya Chaiyya song, the steam engine rolled in the stadium showcasing the Indians from every part of the nation, from every class of the society.
- Fireworks.
- When Kalmadi said "We are ready, India has arrived" and the 65000 people in stadium, 1 billion in front of their TV screens went berserk.
- And yeah, the BIGGEST CHEER, second only to Indian team was reserved for PAKISTAN TEAM. It was fantastic to see crowd giving such a warm reception to our traditional rivals.

12 comments:

  1. Thanks for that awesome writeup Kunal! Sadly no coverage in the non-Commonwealth nation so I missed it. I am looking forward to your regular updates. A question for you - why is football aka soccer not part of the games?

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  2. One can sense your excitement and energy in your writing, Kunal. It sounded thrilling just through your eyes even though I didn't see it myself. Really fab! I will try to look it up on youtube.

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  3. Kunal, brilliant writeup! Dilliwaalon ki izzat bach gayi :-)

    @ Pardesi and Nia: Can't believe you guys missed the opening ceremony! I saw the live telecast on the net...it was beyond awesome!

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  4. Thanks for the awesome writeup Kunal, I looked up the videos for CWG after reading this =D That tree pic is stunning. The only part I got in the videos was all the noise, must have been exciting for the people watching it live and at home with some company. I wonder if this had been China and the crowds were booing the organizer, what would have happened to the people afterwards :D

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  5. thanx for the writeup so against wishes of most people CWG games started successfully . one has to question our Media and their bias reportiing . yes the bridge falling was embarassing but was situation that Bad ? if it was it just doesnot explain how things got cleared out in a wks time . also Delhi had constant rainfall and flood this season so it created trouble for them . glad its all cleared out but it do raise question on our Media ? do they want a good or bad image of India ? as they were first to give a bad image to games .

    btw didnt see the opening ceremony was too happy with city going 2 in league that saw chelsea vs arsenal match wanting arsenal to lose :P

    And was Queen afraid that a day after Gandhi jayanti someone will shout Bharat chodo ?

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  6. yeah why exactly there are Commonwealth games? are we still under the British rule?? k granted that its like a tradition, but why are the British royals still invited like that and made to inaugurate the games? And I found it really funny when the people cheered at Charles' comment that 60 years back Indian got its freedom from them!

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  7. hahaha Neo, when Charles took stage to speak, he had to wait for 2 minutes before speaking. Reason? everyoone was shouting "Indiaaaaa India" It was hysterical. Probably queen knew that this would happen.

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  8. it was good opening ceremony. But will games be succesfull? i still doubt as Indian goes to see cricket only in stadium.

    Australian netball team scored more goals than people in stadium, was headline after first match.

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  9. But no one in India even knows what netball is. Have that match in the US and you will have 50 spectators too, it is not a popular sport.

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  10. agreed. Just want to point out that games success will mostly depend upon people enthusiasm to watch games.

    As far as opening is concern, i liked it more than Beijing Olympics opening.

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  11. I just hate doing word verification after every comment........

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